The standard photo for all data breach stories. This stock photo says: ‘highly computer savvy mind breaks through complicated string of code’, but just to absolutely ensure the reader gets the concept, the word ‘password’ in green font under a magnifying glass apparently really hammers it home.

Used for any incident of teenage hacking. This photograph’s aesthetic message is teen boy who doesn’t shower and spends far too much time on image boards or gaming. The whole vibe is: despairing parents who have sought out an adolescent counsellor but all Jonny does is lock himself in his bedroom with ‘those machines’.

The selfie stick – ubiquitous in real life, ubiquitous in stories about social media. Preferably a group of young, ethnically diverse 20-somethings in a recognisable location illustrating the cultural phenomenon of taking a picture of oneself and one’s friends literally anywhere. Cheese!

Despite the fact that nobody ever types with one index finger except your mum, plenty of tech story images feature a single finger prodding at a keyboard. The laptop or computer is never actually switched on, and if it was, the only thing typed on the screen would be: aaaaaaa.

In case people haven’t worked out what the internet actually is, or how it works, photo agencies have kindly provided us close-up pictures of bunches of cables. Which is great, because we all obviously thought this whole time that the internet was something to do with carrier pigeons and/or messages in bottles, right?

Tech articles love a silhouette feature image. It’s as if everyone goes around using their devices in dark rooms. Which, to be fair, given that we’re now all accustomed to basically sleeping alongside our phones and tablets, isn’t that far off the mark.

Piece on internet and privacy? Reach for this widely used pic of Edward Snowden projected on to a screen looking like Goldstein from Nineteen Eighty-Four, but edited with a Hipstamatic filter circa 2010.

A sister image to the logo reflected in glasses, the logo reflected in eye is a solid favourite. Why? Who the hell knows. Apparently people on social networks and websites spend all of of their time staring at the corporation logos. The tech-logo-reflected-in-eye is
everywhere. For instance …